Ein Deutsches Requiem

The Temple Square Chorale and Orchestra at Temple Square will join their musical talents for this year’s spring concert, “An Evening of Brahms,” featuring Ein Deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem) and the instrumental piece “The Academic Festival Overture,” op. 80. The program will be performed in the Salt Lake Tabernacle on Friday and Saturday, April 20–21, 2018. The evening’s performances will be under the baton of Ryan Murphy, associate music director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and conductor of the Temple Square Chorale.

Ein Deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem), composed by Brahms between 1865 and 1868, is a large-scale work for chorus and orchestra. It comprises seven movements, making this work Brahms’s longest composition. Nearly all prior music requiems used the traditional Latin text of the Catholic mass for the dead. Brahms took a different approach as he chose his own verses from reformer Martin Luther’s German translation of the Bible—selecting passages that would not only mourn the dead but also comfort the living. This performance of Ein Deutsches Requiem will be sung in German by the Temple Square Chorale accompanied by the Orchestra at Temple Square. Soloists for the Requiem will be Clara Hurtado Lee, soprano, who has performed throughout Utah and in Italy and Spain, and Christian Pursell, baritone, whose credits include performances with the San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, and the Vienna State Opera.